Battlescarred
by MetaBlade
Summary: He wasn't taking any chances, not now. Not with such a familiar blade in his hand and such a vivid memory in his heart. (Anime-based, student/mentor friendship.) (Rated for mentions of violence.)


**A/N: I'm going to start this off by saying that, although this story is based on the Kirby anime, I have not watched all the episodes (only a few of them, and a long time ago), nor do I play Kirby games. Most of my knowledge came from reading other peoples' fanfics, so please excuse any errors I made. (I'm fairly certain that Meta Knight doesn't own a house, but he kind of needed one for this story to work.) ****I don't really know when this is supposed to take place, either; probably after the anime events.**

**The first few paragraphs were taken from a very old story (from 2013) that I never finished or published. I really liked how it began, so I thought I'd use a part of it to create a new story.**

**Also, I intended to give the impression that Meta Knight has some form of PTSD in this story (as I imagine he would, considering he survived a war as the only remaining Star Warrior), but that's entirely open to interpretation.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Flashes of light. Crashing metal. Screams. Roars. Death. Blood.

Blood in the snow.

He was alone on a frozen battlefield, all but deserted by his comrades. Crimson pools splashed wetly around his feet, dripping from his sword-blade and the edges of his tattered wings. He felt broken bone splintering and couldn't tell whether it was his or the enemy's.

The red wolf reared up on its hind legs and let out a catlike yowl that pierced his senstive ears. He lunged instinctively, driving his weapon's spikes into the creature's throat. Razor fangs sunk into his arm at the same moment. The wolf screamed as it went down, its eyes meeting his. _I hate you, _he saw written in those eyes.

He woke up gasping for breath, with a familiar phantom pain in his arm and a complete lack of knowledge as to where he was. Then his saw his bed, his floor, his window. Bright whiteness shone through the silk curtains. Snow... yes. Perhaps it was the arrival of snow that had triggered these memories...

He shook his head vigorously and slowly raised a gloved hand to touch the front of his mask... cool metal. Cool, scarred metal.

Scars. Blood.

Someone was knocking at the door.

He grabbed his sword from the corner before going to answer the door. He wasn't taking any chances, not now. Not with such a vivid memory in his heart.

'Poyo?'

He gazed down to see the pink Star Warrior's eyes resting hopefully on his, and sighed deeply, already knowing what was expected of him.

'Kirby... we are not training today. I... do not feel well. Maybe I'm coming down with an illness.' The lie was easy to tell; Kirby was too young to recognise when someone wasn't being entirely honest. And it wasn't as if Meta Knight regularly lied to his pupil. He could do it just this once without feeling guilty. Or so he told himself.

'Poyo...' The young warrior's face fell.

'Tomorrow, Kirby. I promise.'

'Medanigh?' Only then did he realise that Kirby's apparent sadness had nothing to do with being told he couldn't train with his mentor today. The youngster was tugging on the edge of Meta Knight's cape, a concerned crease forming between his eyes. 'Medanigh OK?'

_He must have noticed my arm shaking,_ he thought vaguely. _Or perhaps he is simply more perceptive than I give him credit for..._ 'I'm fine, Kirby. There is nothing to worry about. Now, since we won't be training today, why don't you go and play with Bun and Fumu? Enjoy the snow while it lasts. It might all be gone by tomorrow.' He tried very hard to disguise the hopeful longing in his voice. For him, the snow wasn't a thing to be enjoyed; it brought nothing but reminders of his past, sharp and clear as the day they happened.

The war. The Star Warriors. Nightmare.

He wished that his memories of those times weren't as vivid as they were. It would be nice to be able to close his eyes at night and not hear the screams coming raw and ragged from his comrades' throats, or smell the sicky, coppery odour of blood on the ground. Blood mingling with the snow, bright red against white.

Kirby gazed up at his mentor, surprised by the sudden change he saw come over him. Meta Knight was standing very still, and from a distance, he might have looked calm - but this close, the slight trembling in his body was obvious. Not only that, but the eyes that normally shone a pale yellow had turned orange, signifying that Meta Knight had let them close. Even Kirby - young and innocent as he was - could not fail to notice that something was bothering his mentor.

However - young and innocent as he was - he couldn't begin to guess that the knight's troubles might be caused by memories of the war. His child's mind simply couldn't comprehend those horrors, not when he hadn't been around to see them happen.

'Poyo. C'mon.' He tugged more insistently on Meta Knight's cape, trying to get the older warrior to follow him.

'K-Kirby?'

'O'er here!'

Meta Knight stumbled forwards a step. Not because of the tugging - he was far too strong for Kirby to be able to move him anywhere - but out of pure surprise. 'What it is? Is something wrong? I thought I told you to go and play with your friends.'

Kirby was hearing none of it. With a final tug, he let go of his mentor's cape and began to run away across the snow, heading for a patch of forest nearby. Fearful for the young warrior's safety, Meta Knight reluctantly gave chase, using the powerful bat wings hidden under his cape to fly after him.

Kirby quickly lost himself from the knight's view by running deep into the trees. Evergreens stood tall and silent in the frozen landscape, no breath of wind to disturb their snow-blanketed branches. Meta Knight aimed for what looked like a clearing in the forest and swiftly descended, stilling his wings and dropping down into the open space. He then turned in a circle, looking for Kirby, completely unaware that he was still gripping his sword.

'Medanigh!'

The cry was accompanied by a pattering of footsteps and a rush of displaced air. It sounded like something small was flying towards him. On most mornings, Meta Knight would have realised immediately what Kirby was up to, and the sound wouldn't have disturbed him in the slightest - though he would have been rather disgruntled at having a snowball splattered all over his mask.

But today, with that dream still hanging at the front of his mind, his battle instincts were in overdrive - and had been from the moment he woke up. As soon as he heard what sounded like an object flying towards him, all thoughts of innocent Kirby and snowballs dropped away, to be replaced by images of arrows and magic blasts and rocks thrown from catapaults, every one of them screaming for his blood.

He moved faster than a soldier his age should have been able to, performing a manouvere that he'd mastered a lifetime ago. Skip to the side, dodge the missile before it reached him, and then lunge forwards with a stabbing blow designed to impale whoever had thrown it.

Then he stopped himself.

Kirby stood there, tilting back slightly, the point of Galaxia resting between his eyes. The blade had come within an inch of piercing his body. Yet he wasn't crying, or looking terrified. He wasn't even looking at the sword. His gaze was on Meta Knight, subtly worried, silently asking him what was wrong.

His instincts fell away, realisation hammering back into him. He'd almost killed his pupil. Because of a stupid dream that he couldn't get out of his head.

In horror, he practically threw his sword away, desperate to get it out of his hands, not trusting them to hold it. The blade spun through the air and landed point-down in the snow, firmly embedded. Meta Knight took several steps backwards, breathing heavily, staring at Kirby in complete shock. For a moment, just a moment, he had seen Kirby as one of the monsters from his dream - another enemy to be slain on the battlefield.

_He could be dead right now..._

He sunk to the ground, covering his visor with a gloved hand. His whole body was shaking with adrenaline and terror. Then, unexpectedly, a warm body pushed itself up against his side, tugging gently on his snow-drenched cape.

'Poyo...?'

'I... I'm sorry, Kirby.' His voice was rough and hoarse, sounding nothing like the smooth, accented purr it usually was. To him, it was the voice of an old man who'd killed too many people. 'You didn't do anything wrong.' It seemed important to tell him this. 'It was me who was at fault. I could have hurt you.'

'Poyo... alright?'

'I don't know, Kirby.'

The younger warrior looked up at him, silent now, waiting for him to talk.

'I... I had a dream last night.' He spoke hesitantly; the last thing he wanted was to frighten Kirby. 'I dreamed about the war against Nightmare... you remember that, don't you? I told you a little about it before. I had a dream where I was back in that war, fighting. The ground was covered in snow... and...' Unseen, his mouth moved to form the word 'blood'. 'I always seem to remember the days of the war when winter comes and the land is covered in snow again.'

He knew Kirby was watching and listening, but doubted that the young warrior understood exactly what he was talking about. How could anyone so young, so innocent, comprehend the idea of being haunted by events from your past? It was a foreign concept to him.

'When you threw that snowball, just for a moment, I remembered the war, remembered what it sounded like when enemies were throwing things at me - things that... _weren't_ snowballs... It was not your fault, Kirby. I made a mistake... as everybody does, sometimes.'

The silence continued for a moment. Then - to his surprise - the younger warrior hugged him from the side, making a small noise of understanding. 'Medanigh OK?'

He let out his breath in a long, heaving sigh. White vapour coiled from underneath his mask. 'I am fine, Kirby...'

Kirby stayed in that position for a while, before finally letting go. He ran a short distance away, and before Meta Knight could ask where he was going, he removed Galaxia from the snow and carried the sword back to its master.

'Here!' he said, beaming as he handed it over.

Meta Knight ignored the brief shudder than ran up his arm when he accepted the blade. It was a remnant of his nightmare; it was hard for him to forget everything he'd done with this weapon. 'Thank you,' he said hoarsely, and put it away in its sheath. 'Now, we must go back. It is too cold to stay out here for long - you might get sick.'

'You?'

'Hmm, well, I am wearing armour. You are not.'

He looked around, mentally cursing. They had travelled further from his house than he'd realised. There was nothing to be seen around them except frozen fields and snow-covered trees. 'Climb onto my back. We will fly - it will be much faster than walking.'

The icy air screamed in his ears as he took flight, scarred wings carrying him strongly up and over the forest, Kirby clinging to his shoulder plates. In minutes, the shape of the house came into view, and he immediately halted his flapping and dropped down to land gracefully in front of the door, jolting the younger warrior off his back.

He expected Kirby to leave him at that point, but it didn't happen. Instead, he waited for Meta Knight to open the door - and when he did, they both stepped into the warmth, and Meta Knight instinctively went to the kitchen to make some hot chocolate. He figured that a warm drink would be good after all the time they'd spent out in the cold.

They ended up sitting together in his house, talking and playing games, for the rest of the morning. And when Kirby finally waved goodbye and dashed off into the snow, Meta Knight watched him leave, realising with a jolt of surprise that he had not thought about his nightmare in hours.

He felt at peace again.


End file.
